Newsletters for Children's ministers.

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Introduction and Contents.

Introduction.

In 2002 I began sending out
Newsletters to Children's ministers worldwide, and this Blog contains the
teaching material from all my published Newsletters since
then.

aNOTE.
New Blog from Maurice Sweetsur -
"Bible answers for kids" - http://bibleanswersforkids.blogspot.com/aWho made God? Is there
life elsewhere in the Universe? Why is my brother/sister nasty to me? When did
God create the dinosaurs? Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Where is heaven?
When will the world end? Why do we have earthquakes? Can Christians perform
miracles?aThese are just a few of the children’s
questions that are answered in this Blog.

aNOTE. To view the earlier Newsletters,
scroll down to the bottom of the page, look under 'Archives' and click on
'September 2004'.

To find out more about my ministry to children in
New
Zealand, go to my main 'Blog'
-http://www.unclemaurice.blogspot.com/

If
you wish to access only Object Lessons (passive, active and illusions), go to
http://objectlessons.blogspot.com/

If
you wish to access only Bible lessons and Teaching Tips go to
http://teachinglessons.blogspot.com/

If
you wish to access only stories, skits and puppet plays, go to
http://christianstoriesandplays.blogspot.com/

1. What proof is there that God
exists?2. Why did Adam and Eve sin against God?3. If Adam and Eve were
white skinned, how did dark skinned people come about?4. When did God create
angels?5. Where did Cain get his wife from?6. Did God make
cavemen?7. Why is my brother / sister nasty to me?8. If I ask God for
something, will He give it to me?9. Do people have more than one life on
earth?10. If God knows the future, does that mean that what is going to
happen is going to happen?11. Do all religions lead to
God?

Newsletter 76.(Theology for kids - Part 1).

Qesations and
answers.

1 - Did Jesus really rise from the dead?2 - Is Jesus really
God?3 - How can I know that the Christian faith is true?4 - Did God
write the Bible?5 - When is Jesus coming back to earth?6 - Why does God
allow suffering?7 - Can I be a Christian even if my parents
aren't?

Letter to an atheist - A Birdbox and a
tree.T.T. 20 - Creation and Evolution.Creation or Evolution? - A
comparison.T.T. 47 - Big bang or big mess?Your questions
answered.(Taken from "Kidzone - Archives" - http://www.kidzonearchives.blogspot.com/ ).Who
made God?Is there life elsewhere in the universe?Why did God make us,
and the world?Which came first, the chicken or the egg?When did God
create the dinosaurs?Why is water essential for life?Why did God use
Adam's rib to create Eve?After Eden

Teaching tip 21 - The lost sheep.Fun
story - The lost sheep.Lost sheep skit.Seven core values every child
needs.A right funny.

Newsletter 32.

Creation or Evolution.
Does it really matter what we believe?Teaching tip 20 - Creation and
Evolution.Object Lesson 55 - The new birth.Study finds 'Believers do not
train their children' with faith in mind.Craft 2 - Joined in
love.

Newsletter 31.

Teaching tip 19. Teaching Bible stories in
context.1. God's Time Line2. God's Plan for Man.3. God's
Diary.4. The Wordless Book.5. The Seven C's of History.6. Four words
to describe the history of the world.A Children funny.

What do children
believe?Blessings from children.Teaching tip 17 - Ideas for teaching
about Zacchaeus.The Five Foundations of Children's
Ministry.

Newsletter 28.

Teaching tip 16. How God speaks to
us.

Newsletter 27.

Teaching tip 15. Telling the C.H.R.I.S.T.M.A.S.
story.O.L. 54. - The Christmas tree.Craft 1.- Making a 'fun' Christmas
card.Elimination quiz 2 - Christmas.Fundamental Beliefs 7. The work of
Jesus Christ. 2. Jesus took us to the cross with Himself.A Birthday
Celebration.

Newsletter 26.

Helping children cope with acts of
terrorism.Teaching tip 14. What's in a name?Object Lesson 53. Using your
Fingers as a prayer reminder.Elimination Bible quiz. 1. -
General.Fundamental Beliefs 7. The Work of Jesus Christ. 1. Jesus died for
our sins.Christian one liners.A job funny.

Newsletter
25.

Teaching tip 13. Teaching Memory verses.Fundamental Beliefs 6.
The Person and work of the Holy Spirit.Redefining Children's Ministry in the
21st. Century. By Becky Fischer.10 Myths about children.

Newsletter
24.

Fundamental Beliefs 5. What do Christians believe?Object Lesson
51. Taste and see that the Lord is good.Object Lesson 52. Ask and you shall
receive.Teaching tip 12. The Lord's Prayer.Explanation of God by an 8
year old.A success 'funny'.

Teaching Tip 5 - Developing good habits.A. Teaching children how
to make right choices.O.L. 46 - Making right choices.O.L. 47 - Choosing
the right friends.B. Teaching children to be generous givers.Things Kids
say.

Newsletter 18.

Teaching Tip 4 - Ideas on teaching about
Creation.O.L. 41. The earth, sun and moon (Acting out their
motions).O.L. 42. Gravity (Demonstration with a ball and string).O.L.
43. Can nothing turn into something? (An experiment with an empty jar).O.L.
44. Dependence on oxygen (Holding your breath)O.L. 45. "Made after its own
kind."(An Acorn example).Seven reasons why not to mess with a
child.

Newsletter 17.

Overcoming discipline problems - by making
your lessons fun and exciting.Teaching Tip 3. (For use with the David and
Goliath story).O.L. 39. Wrestling match (Defeating Giants).O.L. 40.
Samson pad (Defeating Giants).5 things I have learned about Kids. by Karl
Bastian.

Newsletter 11.O.L. 27. Needle through a balloon (Miracles /
Testimony).O.L. 28. God's provision (Dandelions).Puppet play - How do
you get to heaven?A points funny.Ice Breaker - A tongue
twister.Newsletter 10.

O.L. 25. Jesus is the light of the world
(Trick candles).O.L. 26. God is all knowing (Five different
methods).What children believe - Results of survey.

Newsletter
9.

O.L. 22. Miracles (Large disc goes through small hole).O.L. 23.
Standing up under pressure (Plastic tops in water).O.L. 24. Defeating evil
with good (paper is stronger than wood).Gems from the classroom.The
questions Kids ask.

16 Getting
children to pray in public. (1)16 How we should pray (A lesson from blind
Bartimaeus). (2)17 Overcoming discipline problems - by making your lessons
fun and exciting.17 Ideas for teaching the David and Goliath story.
(3)18 Ideas on teaching about Creation. (4)19 Developing good habits.
(5)A. Teaching children how to make right choices.B. Teaching children
to be generous givers.20 Use of Balloon modelling in Children's ministry.
(6)21 Use of Ventriloquism to teach class rules. (7)21 Leading children
to Christ. (8)22 Noah's ark and the flood. (9)23 Use of storytelling.
(10)23 What is love? (11)24 The Lord's prayer. (12)25 Teaching
Memory verses. (13)26 What's in a name? (14)27 Telling the
C.H.R.I.S.T.M.A.S. story. (15)28 How God speaks to us. (16)29 Ideas for
teaching about Zacchaeus. (17)30 Jesus Understands (Easter). (18)31
Teaching Bible stories in context. (19)32 Creation and Evolution. (20)33
The lost sheep. (21)34 The lost son. (22)35 The Good Samaritan.
(23)37 Knowing Jesus or knowing about Jesus? (24)38 The Ten
Commandments. (25)39 Head belief or heart belief? (26)40 New Life in
Christ (27)40 Assurance of salvation (28)42 Memory verses on cardboard
discs (29)42 Teaching Bible stories as real history (30)44 Teaching
children to P.R.A.Y. (31)46 Peer pressure (32)47 Our lives are on loan
from God. (33)47 Religion or Christianity. (34)49 Presenting puppet
skits and plays. (35)49 Steps to forgiving others. (36)51 We are
valuable to God. (37)54 The progressive revelation of God. (38)55 Why
Christians praise God. (39)58 Made in the image of God (40)61 Symbols of
Christmas (41)61 Commitment to Christ - Two analogies (42)61 Our amazing
earth (43)63 Using Christian songs to teach Biblical truths. (44)64
Using Christian songs to teach Biblical truths (Part 2). (44)64 Dead to the
world. (45)64 The day of rest. (46)65 Big bang or big mess? (47)71
The twelve days of Christmas (48)72 What children need to understand about
God. (49)75 The Church (50)75 The road of life (51)78 Getting to
know your children (52)79 Discipleship (53)

82 Playing for God's team
(54).83.Christian myths (55)

85.God's unconditional love
(56).

89. What do children believe? (57)

89. Developing good habits and
making good choices (58).

89. Understanding Biblical Miracles
(59).

90. God's Diary
(60).

90. How old is the earth?
(61).

91. How many different types of
Christians are there? (62)

92. God v. Santa
Claus.(63)

92. Did God really create the earth
in six days? (64)

93. Keeping discipline in your
children’s class (65).

93 Helping children to defend their
faith (66).

94. The Star of Bethlehem
(67).

95. God’s love
(68).

Fundamental
Beliefs.

Newsletter. Title.

20 Did Christ really rise from the
dead? (1)21 Is Jesus really God? (2)22 Did God write the Bible?
(3)23 Why does God allow suffering? (4)24 What do Christians believe?
(5)25 The Person and work of the Holy Spirit. (6)26 The Work of Jesus
Christ. 1. Jesus died for our sins. (7)27 The Work of Jesus Christ. 2. Jesus
took us to the cross withHimself.
(7)

6 What is
Christmas all about?7 What is Easter all about?11 How do you get to
heaven?33 The lost sheep.34 The lost son.71 I don't believe in
God.

Plays / Skits.

Newsletter. Title.

17 David and
Goliath.34 The lost son.35 The Good Samaritan.42 Zacchaeus.43
Bartimaeus.46 Tenants on the farm.49 The unmerciful servant.54 The
water pump.

Stories.

Newsletter. Title.

5 A soldier
gives up his life for his friends.17 David and Goliath.33 The lost
sheep.34 A modern Prodigal.35 Jesus for tea.36 A free pardon.37
Feeding the 5000.38 God knows best.39 Blondin (Head belief or heart
belief?)39 God uses children (Wesley Steelberg).41 A free pardon.41
The true picture of your life.42 DOG/GOD42 Message in a bottle.43
Daniel in the lion's den.43 Processionary caterpillars.44 Doing the
right thing.49 Doing your duty. (A story for Remembrance Sunday).51 The
healing of the paralytic (Mark 2. 1-12).55 "Hank"57 The Little
Monkey.58 Honouring your parents.59 Jimmy and the six weird witches
(Parts 1 - 3).60 Jimmy and the six weird witches (Parts 4 - 6).63 The
portrait of the son.69 Jo Jo and the Umbrella.70 Cuthbert the
clock.72 "I give you me!"78 The old oak
tree.

9 The
questions kids ask.10 What children believe - Results of survey.14 Do
children need to be saved?15 Evangelising children - Your response.16
What's wrong with grownups?17 Overcoming discipline problems - By making
your lessonsfun and exciting.17 5 things I have learned about
kids.21 Young children and salvation.25 Redefining Children's ministry
in the 21st. Century.25 10 Myths about children.26 Helping children cope
with acts of terrorism.29 What do children believe?29 Blessings from
children.29 The five foundations of Children's ministry.32 Study finds
'Believers do not train their children' with faith in mind. 33 Seven core values
every child needs.35 Why God loves little children.36 Excellence in
Sunday School.38 Teaching children to pray.43 Discipline in class.63
Children's ministry in today's church.

20 The paradoxical
commandments - Anyway.34 Sobering Blessings.35 Love: A paraphrase of 1
Corinthians 13.36 If children live - - -37 From the kids.61 The
Calling.71 A message by George Carlin.79 Stories that touch the
heart.

Answering the five reasons why
Christian Religious Education should not be allowed in state
schools.

Funnies.

Freedom
of choice.

Humanist / Naturalist groups have
often criticised Christians for opposing their "freedom of choice." Examples are
their freedom to abort an unwanted foetus, their freedom to have a same-sex
marriage and their freedom to practice euthanasia. In general their philosophy
is "I am not answerable to anybody. Therefore, I have freedom of choice, and so
anything is permissible - as long as nobody gets
hurt."

I find it rather ironic that these
humanists / naturalists, and the "Secular Education Network" in particular, are
vigorously opposing the rights of New Zealand primary schools to offer
Religious education (RE) programmes, and to give parents the right to choose to
let their children attend them.

All parents have the right to
choose to withdraw their children from these classes, so why does anybody wish
to remove the rights of schools to offer the RE programmes and parents to allow
their children to attend them if they wish?

Perhaps the humanists /
naturalists should amend their philosophy to include something like "We believe
in freedom of choice for us, but not for anybody who disagrees with
us."

T.T. 68. God’s
love.

An old song entitled “More than
yesterday” is about a girl who asks a boy “How much do you love me?” His answer
is “I love you more than yesterday, but less than tomorrow.” In other words he
was telling the girl that his love for her was increasing every
day.

I wondered if God loves us in a
similar way. Is His love for us growing stronger every day?

The answer to the question is “No”.
The reason is that God already loves us to the maximum extent. He can never love
us any more than He does today, or any less than He does today. God may not like
some of the things we do, especially if we ignore Him or are nasty to other
people, but He will still love us to the maximum because “God is
love.”

If anyone asks “How much does God
love me?” Point them to the cross. You cannot love anyone more than giving up
your life for them.

Testimony – God
loves you – pass it on.

A number of years ago a fellow
“Bible in school” teacher (I will call her “Pat”) felt led by the Lord to help
another woman in her church (I will call her “Jean”). Jean’s husband had
deserted her, leaving her to bring up two young children on her own. Pat decided
to help out with Jean’s financial burden. Therefore, every month for a number of
years, Pat anonymously paid a sum of money into Jean’s Bank
account.

When Jean’s children were older, she
was able to go out and get a job. Upon doing so, she was now in a position to
pass on God’s love to someone else. Because someone helped her in her time of
need, she found another lady who was struggling financially, and started giving
money to her regularly.

We are all recipients of God’s love.
Let us keep on passing it on, especially to those in greatest
need.

Answering
the five reasons why Christian Religious Education should not be allowed in
state schools.

A vigorous campaign is being
conducted with the objective of making all New
Zealand state schools completely secular. There
are five main arguments that are used as to why these Christian Religious
Education (CRE) programmes should stop. These are
:-

1. The closing of schools for 30
minutes per week is illegal.

An amendment to the Education act in
1964 allowed schools, if they wished, to officially close for half an hour a
week to allow Religious teaching to take place. In this way the schools remained
"Secular". Parents who did not wish their children to participate had the right
to withdraw them from such classes. Thus, such an arrangement is, and always has
been, completely legal.

As a way of compromise, some have
suggested that the CRE classes should take place outside normal school
hours i.e. at lunchtime or after school. As schools areofficially
closed while CRE classes are taught, they already take place outside school
hours. CRE classes held at lunchtime or after school would have to take place in
a hall, without access to basic teaching aids such as desks, chairs,
whiteboards, pens, pencils, etc. Also, whether the classes meet during lunchtime
or after normal school hours, they would be competing with eating time,
playtime, and various other activities that the children would have to give up
if they wished to attend the Religious Education
class.

2.Christian Religious
Education is just a means of indoctrinating
children.

There is a world of difference
between indoctrination and passing on knowledge about a subject. The purpose of
CRE is to teach the basics of the Christian faith and show the important role it
has played both historically and culturally in the development of New
Zealand's society. It is taught as a Belief
system with such phrases as "Christians believe that - - - - " or "The Bible
teaches that - - - - " commonly being used.

The religious
education teachers are drawn from all the main Christian (still by far the main
religion in NZ) denominations and teach from an agreed syllabus that
deliberately avoids any controversial subjects or anything that may offend
people of different beliefs.

3.Schools are discriminating against
the children that are withdrawn from CRE
classes.

Because schools are
officially closed during CRE lessons, children are not obliged to attend them.
All parents need to do if they do not wish their child to attend such classes is
notify the school. The school will then provide suitable alternative activities
for such children. Some schools run their
own non-religious "values" programme at the same time so as to give parents
a choice of which one for their children to attend. However, most parents still
opt to send their children to the "Christian"
programme.

Really it is those
who oppose Christian education who are doing the discriminating. Because maybe
one parent doesn't want their child to attend the CRE class, they seem to think
they have the right to force its closure against the wishes of the thirty or so
other parents who support it.

Over the last few
years many schools have polled parents on this subject. However, I do not know
of any school where the poll showed that the majority of parents favoured
stopping these programmes - although some of the schools went ahead anyway and
stopped the programmes to appease the vocal minority opposed to them. St.
Heliers school is a recent example. Their poll found that 68% were in favour of
the programmes, 19% were against and 13% didn't care either
way.

4.If Christianity is taught in
schools, then so should all
religions.

It is estimated that
there are about 4,200 religions in the world! It is generally agreed that there
are twelve "major" world religions, but it would still be impracticable to teach
them all. Someone may suggest that only the "important" religions are taught,
but who would decide which religions were "important" and which were
not?

Actually, if their are
high numbers of people following a certain religion in one particular location,
there is no reason why their representatives cannot approach the local school to
ask them to allow teaching of their religion. In fact, I know of some schools
that already allow this.

5. A better use of
children's time would be in studying more of the normal school curriculum rather
than having a CRE programme.

Let's put this in
perspective. Schools vary in the amount of time that they allocate to CRE
programmes. However, not many schools allocate as much as 15 hours per
year, and many allocate considerably less than this. I am
sure that each year most children will spend considerably more time than 15
hours absent from school for various reasons.

The CRE programme
teach students about the importance of such virtues as respect, integrity,
honesty, tolerance, discipline, acceptance, forgiveness etc. They are intended
to help develop a safe and friendly environment in which the students will be
more likely to develop good habits and be better equipped to make better life
choices. They are thus designed to help maintain a safe and friendly school
environment in which students thrive.

As well as making a
difference to the moral standards of the students, these programmes would also
be expected to result in them becoming more disciplined and conscientious
towards their school work. This appears to be the case. National Standards
results show that, far from diminishing the academic achievements of the
children because of the less time spent studying the normal school curriculum,
schools that allow Religious education actually perform better on average than
those that don't (even though the average Decile values of the two groups were
almost identical).

Funnies,

(Forwarded by
Derek Sweetsur)

1. Two
boys were walking home from Sunday school after hearing a strong sermon on the
devil.

One said to the other, "What do you think about all this Satan
stuff?"

To emphasize
the point, he asked three times, with increasing intensity: "Who is my
neighbour? WHO is my neighbour? WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR?!"

Each time he asked a young boy behind us answered
(mimicking the pastor’s intensity, but not quite as loud): "Mister Rogers!
Mister Rogers! Mister Rogers!"

5. A Sunday school teacher decided to have her young
class memorize one of the most quoted passages in the Bible - Psalm 23. She
gave the youngsters a month to learn the chapter. Little Rick was excited about
the task - but he just couldn't remember the Psalm. After much practice, he
could barely get past the first line. On
the day that the kids were scheduled to recite Psalm 23 in front of the
congregation, Ricky was so nervous.

When it was his turn, he stepped up to the microphone
and said proudly, "The Lord is my Shepherd, and that's all I need to know."
[forwarded by Larry
Perry]

6.
A pastor was giving the children's message during church.
For this part of the service, he would gather all the children around him and
give a brief lesson before dismissing them for children's
church.

On this particular Sunday, he was using squirrels for an
object lesson on industry and preparation. He started out by saying, "I'm going
to describe something, and I want you to raise your hand when you know what it
is." The children nodded eagerly.

"This thing lives in trees (pause) and eats nuts
(pause)..." No hands went up. "And it is grey (pause) and has a long bushy
tail (pause)..." The children were looking at each other, but
still no hands raised. "And it jumps from branch to branch (pause) and chatters
and flips its tail when it's excited
(pause)..."

Finally one little boy tentatively raised his
hand

The pastor
breathed a sigh of relief and called on him. "Well...," said the boy, "I *know*
the answer is Jesus...but is sure sounds like a squirrel to
me."

About Me

Under the name "Uncle Maurice" I began, in 1998, to develop "fun-filled" special lessons for children using ventriloquism, Gospel illusions, puppets, balloon modelling and stories. I now take these lessons to various groups throughout Auckland and beyond, e.g. Sunday schools, Family services, Kids clubs, Holiday programmes, School 'break-up' Assemblies, Uniform organisations, Church camps etc.
My special friend friend "George" and myself are available to take "fun filled" Bible programmes at at any church or organisation in the Greater Auckland area. My programmes are very flexible, and can fit in with any requirements.
Although I have ministered at over a hundred different churches in the last few years, nearly three quarters of my bookings are for 'return visits'. I have also worked in association with Churches education commission, Open air campaigners, Scripture union, Sunday school union, Christian youth camps and Kidsreach.
No charge is made in the Auckland area.